Disney Mulan/Ping Training Costume & Armour Tutorial

Re: Disney Mulan/Ping Training Costume & Armour build

Just a bit of context before I carry on, in Day 9's post, the first photo was taken at 3pm (but I most likely started working at 1pm to work out the pattern) and the last one at 3:30am. But it was a Saturday so I was actually working from 5pm-11pm, therefore, although I title it a day, it really was only several hours work for what little I have to show, and not a full 12 hours! Just so you know a gauntlet can be made in a much shorter time frame than a day haha

DAY 10 (20/9/2015)

Shinguards

As we saw before, I made the patterns and cut the foam at 3am.



But of course, I am very, very short on foam and the size I have are not large enough to make the shinguards!! What can I do? Nothing but to just work with it! But it was late and I was knackered and it was far too much thinking - I went to bed. I could work it out tomorrow.

Next day came and I set myself to it. As you can see on my pattern, I have marked out the half way point. I ended up using two foam mats to one shin guard, and planned to connect it together in the middle. In any case, the pattern on the shinguard might actually be able to hide this, so it seems like a good idea:


Two mats = one shinguard. I placed both mats in the oven to heat and mould. Again, I had my brother on hand to help, and we held the mats tightly around his leg and pulled them so that they would meet as seamlessly as possible and hold that way when cooled. Repeat for the other leg. After, I hot glued the pieces together:



Once glued, I also kept curling it round into a tight cylinder, to make it as rounded as possible.

Again, retraced the pattern and after a lot of redrawing, I got the right shape for the surface layer. I originally wanted the line in the middle of the shinguard to be the main EVA base showing through, and that the surface pattern was two separate parts of thin craft foam. But now because I have this very telling joint line, I had to cover it up. Oh well, what can you do.


All thin foam was either hot-glued or super glued or spray glued on.



And there it is finally done and ready to seal!! I spent a day on each shinguard, between work. So DAY 11 (23/9/2015) I made the other shinguard, which is what actually you see in the photos. I forgot to document my bumbling about the first time round because I was so focussed on getting it done right.

Re: Disney Mulan/Ping Training Costume & Armour build

DAY 12 (24/9/2015)

As you can tell by the previous dates, I was sporadically working on the costume due to uni. I was also at the point of panicking and manic working so I didn't take many photos. However, I'm glad to say that there wasn't much missed, that I just did the exact same as the steps shown here.

The only photo I have from this day is this one:


After everything was painted, the last thing I had to do before the convention in literally a days' time was to work out how to put it all together and make it wearable.

Now, even writing it now, in late November, I'm shy to show how I did it just because of how laughable and shoddy and actually uncomfortable it is! When I have the time, I will definitely revamp (and write) how it fits together, for it to be more comfortable and more importantly: to make it easier for me to wear myself!!! It takes me almost an hour to get everything on as flush as I can and to get the sash wrapped around correctly : (

However, as it stands at this point, everything is basically held together by velcro. Trade secret gone right there. It worked well for the first few times wearing the costume (and when my brother dressed me) but as I keep taking it off, the hot glue off the back of the EVA and velcro is peeling and constantly needs to be glued back on. Furthermore, because the EVA mats for the gauntlets and shinguards were so stretched, they don't exactly enclose my arms and legs neatly. If I've worn it for long enough and it starts to become slack, you can see a gap where it meets and where the velcro holds it together. At times like these, I either hide it conveniently (gauntlets I turn the opening inwards so that only I or anyone standing incredibly close can see it) or deliberately make a point to stand very straight on in front of cameras, or do that walk to detract attention from it lol.

I will try take and post photographs of the current faults as soon as I have the time, just to give an idea of how bad it is (as an example to avoid lol) and to even, actually, appeal to RPF on how to improve the fastening of the costume. I think I'll need to remake the armour in the future anyway, once I get a better idea of making EVA armour. Maybe invest in some much needed tools like a heat gun.

DAY 13 (25/9/2015)

Day before the convention and I was definitely rounding things off, including sewing the ends of a large square of light green fabric for the scarf, and different rectangular fabrics for the sash. No photos but I'll try and get them up as soon as.

Re: Disney Mulan/Ping Training Costume & Armour build

Despite how shoddy the fastening might be, and the shaping etc, for my first EVA armour build, I sure am proud. I've managed to tackle another big project, right after Ripley, head on and finished in under two weeks' time (time accumulated). Like my previous thread, I'll give a round up:

SUMMARY

Equipment:

• Sewing Machine and standard sewing equipment: tape, pins, chalk, iron, seam ripper etc
• EVA foam armour tutorials online left right and centre! But all relevant ones linked according to my progress posts.
• Oven
• Hair dryer when it got desperate

Materials:

• Hot glue sticks (£11, two packs)
• Super glue
• Spray glue (Poundland? £1?)
• Thick EVA mats left over from previous builds (pack of 6: 400mmx400mm is £9)
• Thin EVA craft foam, pack of 20 A5 (£2) x2
• Thin EVA craft foam pack of 10 A4 (£5.99) x2
• Light Green and Dark Green for the trims, sash and scarf, both at £4.99 p/m. (Total spend £10? Less than that?)
• Khaki for the trousers at £4.99 p/m (Total spend £8.98)
• Greyish Cotton for the coat at £6.99 (Total spend £1.40)
• Poundland black spray paint that ran out on me (£1)
• KOBRA Matt Black 400ml spray paint (£5.99)
• 500ml bottle of PVA (£3)
• Acrylic paint
• 'Bo' staff, which is actually just a wooden mop handle (£1)
• Primark white tights (£2)
• Primark shoes (£3)

Cost:
~£60 Truth be told, even writing this in November, I did not think I had spent this much!! However, I will give myself the benefit of the doubt as a lot of the thin craft foam was left over (for another project ) and I've hardly used any of the PVA, plus a fair bit of the spray paint remaining.

Time:
~13 days worth of time, from when I started planning right to when the sashes were sewn and everything was finished.
I'm not even going to attempt to guess the number of hours on this one but certainly not as long as Ripley's!

HINDSIGHT IS 20/20

As is customary, or it seems like it is for me: a list of regrets - or nicely put, after thoughts! And some pointers for others to be wary of, or for me in the future!

1. Buy more packs of the larger foam (safer with excess) than small in good time and not last minute when desperately needed!
2. Use a heat gun or more reliable/flexible source of heat.
3. Make the training coat pattern larger than 'just right'. Easier to take in if too baggy than it is to make it look less slutty when it's lacking in material!!
4. Don't make the trousers as baggy.
5. Make a foam ruler and don't just rely on clingfilm/masking tape mould patterns!
6. Velcro can chafe/cut into the skin if worn too long! Armour attachments could just generally be improved - vastly! Think of straps and buckles rather than velcro!

Now that I've done it once, I'm definitely hoping to remake it in the future. It'll do for now but my aim is to recreate what I've done with a better know how of the techniques, for a better fit and for it to be realistic enough that it still looks true to the cartoon. Maybe in the far future I can attempt a historically accurate one, lol. Regardless of all this, this has also been another incredibly enjoyable project. I made a start towards learning how to make foam armour; another sewing success, this time from scratch with the training uniform; and it's a good 98% accurate, I'd say! Plus, I've ticked off the Disney costume box?!

Re: Disney Mulan/Ping Training Costume & Armour build

Complete Costume

MCM Comic Con Scotland, Day 2 (27/9/2015)

I'll copy and paste here what I wrote on my Facebook the day after the event:

Childhood dream fulfilled ✔
Despite not having a Mushu, crazy how many people recognised the character and asked for photographs - even from behind. Glad to see that Mulan is still remembered even over the many Elsas out there and classics like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White! Think that'll be the closest I'll get to working for Disneyland lmao
Fun and memorable first convention for sure!

It was honestly so bizarre to have people calling out Mulan, or seeing surprised and excited faces whenever you walked by, and strangers from kids to adults alike randomly appearing and asking for photos - which I was extremely happy to oblige - even within a minute of finally getting the last of the 'armour' on. I'm sure I had around 20 photos with others or on my own...

So here are the long anticipated photos of this build! I'm a bit embarrassed that I look rather dishevelled, as this was taken towards the end of the day, after wandering about for a good few hours, and already knackered from the previous day of con and wearing quite dry and uncomfortable contact lenses. However, these were the only good, full on ones from the day, courtesy of the girls at Otakuography!



And my more preferred poses to hide my discomfort but also my awkwardness at being photographed as a new cosplayer/costumer:


So yeah, pretty chuffed with this one!

Re: Disney Mulan/Ping Training Costume & Armour build

Here's a pre-con selfie:


An actual event photo:


And more from other con-goers!

Walked by these ladies and they literally all stood up! So glad to have gotten photographs with other Disney characters!


Selfies were the way to go as the costume is quite restrictive and incredibly hot once all the layers are on and the sashes are tied tightly.



A very formidable and incredible FNAF working mechanical monster!!


And some more!



The Lady Loki also got this portrait of me:


And that's it from the event, and thus concludes this thread!

Oh, and I also hit number 1 in the cosplay subreddit:


and this is the link as of today


And I literally found this blog post on me today, hence why I finished the thread!

Crazy!

Congratulations! That looks quite good all together.

I'm not quite clear on the dark green / teal trim on the armor – is that painted foam? I thought you mentioned fabric earlier?

Mike J. said:

Congratulations! That looks quite good all together.

I'm not quite clear on the dark green / teal trim on the armor – is that painted foam? I thought you mentioned fabric earlier?

Click to expand...

Thanks Mike! : )
Yes, all of the armour is made from mats and thin craft sheets. I considered fabric but it would have looked inconsistent and odd. The dark green/teal trim is the EVA mat base, and the black part is the thin sheet glued on top.

I went to PlayExpo recently and decided to suit up! Joined the Cosplay Masquerade last minute and ended up winning the 'In Character' award for my stage presence and for historical referencing in my materials. And finally some decent photographs taken of me in my costume by PhotoGoku:



and my favourite by far as it's the most in character photo of me doing Ping's awkward walk: